Puritan Coal Corp. v. Davis
| Decision Date | 18 March 1947 |
| Docket Number | 9923. |
| Citation | 42 S.E.2d 807,130 W.Va. 20 |
| Parties | PURITAN COAL CORPORATION v. DAVIS. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied June 23, 1947.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. The failure of an employer, subject to the Unemployment Compensation Law of this State, through inadvertence, to file the report and to make the payment of the contribution required of him on January 31 of a current calendar year, for the last quarter of the immediately preceding calendar year but which report is filed and which payment is made on March 18 of such current calendar year, before the rates of contributions for employers for that year have been calculated and fixed and before the first quarterly payment of such contributions becomes due on April 30 of that year does not defeat the right of such employer, under subsection 3, Section 7, Article 5, Chapter 130, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1945, to require the Director of the Department of Unemployment Compensation to classify him in accordance with his actual experience in the payment of contributions in his own behalf and with respect to benefits charged against his account with a view of fixing such rate of contribution for that calendar year as will reflect his actual experience.
2. An employer, subject to the Unemployment Compensation Law of this State, who inadvertently fails to file the report required of him by the regulations of the Director of the Department of Unemployment Compensation, on January 31 of a calendar year, for the purpose of determining the amount of his contribution for such year, but who later files a correct report on March 18 immediately following, before the rates of contributions for employers for such year are calculated and fixed by the director and before the first quarterly payment of such contribution becomes due on April 30 of that year and who, on April 5, was notified by the director that the assessment of the contribution for such employer for such calendar year had been fixed at the maximum rate permitted by the statute, substantially complies with the requirement of subsection 1, Section 17-a, Article 5, Chapter 76, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1943, and is entitled to have such assessment redetermined by the director in accordance with his actual experience in the payment of contributions in his own behalf and with respect to benefits charged against his account during the immediately preceding three consecutive years in which his account was chargeable with benefits and at a rate of contribution which reflects such experience, as required by subsection 3, Section 7, Article 5, Chapter 130, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1945.
3. When an employer, subject to the Unemployment Compensation Law of this State, who, though having inadvertently made default in filing a report and in making a payment required of him on a specified date, has not lost the legal right secured to him by subsection 3, Section 7, Article 5, Chapter 130, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1945, to have the rate of annual contributions required of him determined by the director upon the basis of the actual experience of such employer, or the legal right secured to him to have an assessment made by the director redetermined, as provided in subsection 1, Section 17-a, Article 5, Chapter 76, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1943, and it clearly appears that such rights are possessed by such employer and that there is no other adequate remedy available to him, the writ of mandamus will issue at his instance to require the director to recognize such rights and to perform the duties imposed upon the director by those sections of the Unemployment Compensation Law.
Lant R. Slaven, of Williamson, for petitioner.
Leo Loeb, of Charleston, for respondent.
The petitioner, Puritan Coal Corporation, seeks a writ of mandamus in this Court, to require the defendant, the Honorable C. S. Davis, Director of the Department of Unemployment Compensation of West Virginia, to fix the rate of contribution for the petitioner to the unemployment compensation fund for the calendar year 1946 at 0.9 per cent and to accept settlement of its account for that year on that basis. Upon its petition, filed in this Court December 31, 1946, a rule was issued returnable January 8, 1947. On that day the defendant appeared and filed his demurrer and his answer, and this proceeding was argued and submitted for decision.
The facts are not disputed and questions of law only are involved.
The petitioner, a West Virginia corporation, is engaged in the operation of coal mines in Mingo County and is now, and for more than five years has been, an employer of labor subject to the provisions of the West Virginia Unemployment Compensation Law. For the calendar year 1945 its rate of contribution to the fund was fixed at 1.2 per cent. Until January 31, 1946, it appears to have complied with all the requirements of the statute and of the regulations of the director of the department. On that date, through inadvertence, it failed to file with the director its report of the amount of wages paid by it during the last quarter of 1945, and to make payment of its contribution to the fund for that period, which report and payment were, under regulations promulgated by the director, due on or before that date. Promptly upon discovery of the oversight by the petitioner, the report was filed and the payment was made on March 18, 1946. From and after that time the director was in possession of all data necessary to enable him to calculate and fix the rate of contribution to the fund by the petitioner for the calendar year 1946. On March 18, 1946, and since January 1, 1946, the assets of the fund, excluding payments due at the beginning of that calendar year, exceeded the total benefits paid from the fund during the calendar year 1945; the payments credited by the director to the account of the petitioner, exclusive of the amount paid by it on March 18, 1946, for all years prior to 1946, exceeded the benefits charged by the director against the account by an amount equal to at least 10 per cent of the average annual payroll of the petitioner; and the fund exceeded the sum of thirty-five million dollars.
The actual calculation of the rates for all employers subject to the Unemployment Compensation Law requires a portion of the time between January 31 and April 30, the date on which the first quarterly payment of contributions for the calendar year must be made; and on March 18, 1946, the director had not completed this calculation or actually fixed these rates for that calendar year. The director refused to fix any rate for petitioner on the basis of its actual experience in the payment of contributions with respect to the benefits charged against its account, because of its failure to file its report and make its payment on or before January 31, 1946. Instead, on April 5, 1946, he notified the petitioner that its rate of contribution for the calendar year 1946 would be the maximum rate permitted by the statute of 2.7 per cent of the wages paid by it. The position of the director is that, as the books of the department are by statute required to be closed on January 31, 1946, for that calendar year, no information received by him after that date can be used in the calculation and the fixing of the contribution rates for an employer for that year. Efforts to adjust their differences as to the rate of contribution to which the petitioner is entitled under the statute in the factual situation outlined above having failed, the petitioner instituted this original proceeding in mandamus in this Court on December 31, 1946.
The petitioner contends that, despite its failure to file the report and to make the payment on or before January 31, 1946, it is entitled under the statute, because the report was filed and the payment made on March 18, 1946, and before the rates had been calculated and fixed by the director for the calendar year, to a rate of contribution based on its actual experience, and that on that basis its rate should be fixed at 0.9 per cent of the wages paid by it for the calendar year 1946. It asserts that the action of the director in fixing the maximum rate in the situation which arises from the undisputed facts, though taken by the director in good faith, is arbitrary and in reality results in the imposition of a penalty which its admittedly satisfactory record of actual experience does not deserve, and that such action can not be justified by any provision of the statute. It further insists that, under the Unemployment Compensation Law, it has a clear legal right to the rate of contribution which its actual experience establishes.
Though admitting the factual situation heretofore mentioned, the director contends that to enable him to comply with the statute in the performance of his duties to calculate and fix the rates of contributions for all employers, he must close the books of the department on January 31, in each year that, as a consequence of that requirement of the law, any report filed after that date can not be considered by him in calculating and fixing the rates of contributions for that calendar year, which, under the regulations of the director, promulgated pursuant to the statute, he must do between that date and April 30, when the first payment of the contribution is due from each employer; that if any report received after January 31 is considered for that purpose, all reports so received should be considered, which procedure would enable all employers to delay the filing of reports indefinitely and prevent the calculation and the fixing of any rate for a given calendar year, which must be done as of January 1 in such...
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